-Bacon's theatrical personality
-His theatre-loving environment
-His involvement in amateur dramatics
-His comments on the public Theatre(and on poetry)
-In the Advancement of Learning
-In De Augmentis
-In other works
-His fondness for theatrical metaphors
-His proposed science of human nature -Did he formulate it
in the Shake-Speare plays?
-The Stratfordian answer to his interest in the Theatre
-Postscript on Shake-Speare Quartos perhaps once in Bacon's
possession

5.
BACON'S SPARE TIME
-His legal work
-Other calls on his time
-His prose works up to 1613
-How did he use his leisure?
-Shake-Speare plays fewer as Bacon gets busier
- Did Shakspere have time to write the plays?
-Shakspere's acting

55

6. THE METAPHORICAL
SHAKE-SPEARE

-The pronunciation of "Shakspere"
-"Shake-Speare" an ideal pen name for Bacon
-Pallas, the spear-shaker

62

7. THE LEARNING OF
SHAKE-SPEARE, BACON AND SHAKSPER
SHAKE-SPEARE'S LEARNING

-Learning on the face of the Works
-Submerged learning
-His wide reading
-Plot sources
-classical sources
-His knowledge of Latin
-Did he know Greek?
-His knowledge of French and Italian
-His play sources in languages other than English
-His knowledge of Spanish
-His vocabulary
-His abstruse reading
-His alleged mistakes

BACON'S LEARNING
SHAKSPERE'S LEARNING-His background, His schooling, The curriculum at
Stratford Grammar School, Echoes of School learning in the
Shake-Speare plays, The glorification of Stratford Grammar
School, Comparison with university education, Shakspere a
schoolmaster in the country?, Shakspere's limited
opportunities for self-education, The cost of books,
Shake-Speare's early learning, Richard Field, Shake-Speare's
early knowledge of French and Italian, Shake-Speare's
knowledge of Italy, Other self-educated people, Shakspere's
small Latin and less Greek,Shakspere lacked contemporary
reputation for learning, Shakspere's signature's, No books
in Shakspere's Will, The Wills of some other authors,
Shakspere's daughters uneducated,
Conclusion

65

8.
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS AND THE GRAY'S INN REVELS OF
CHRISTMAS 1594-5

Introduction, The course of the Revels and Bacon's
involvement in them, His authorship of The Masque of
Proteus,Parallels between the Revels and Bacon's works,
The mock disorders, The mock trial, Sorcery a theme of
The Comedy of Errors and the Revels, Was the
"sorceror" Bacon?, Other Parallels between The Comedy of
Errors and the rest of the Revels, The Comedy of
Errors written specially for the Revels, Bacon's
activities around the time of the Revels, The Comedy of
Errors written by an Inn member, Did Shakspere's company
act The Comedy of Errors at Gray's Inn? Possible
provenance of The Comedy of
Errors, Conclusions

105

9.
LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST

The background, Written for an educated audience, which
would be uneconomic for a professional playwright, The
play's in-jokes favour Bacon's authorship, It uses
historical details within Bacon's purview, The academy,
Marguerite de Valois's embassy to Navarre, Marguerite's
journeys, French names in the plays, The King's riding and
writing habits, Helene de Tournon and Hamlet's Ophelia,
Local topography at Nerac, Evaluation of the historical
parallels, Shakspere's likely ignorance of them, Parallels
between the play and the Gray's Inn Revels 1594-5, The play
probably written for the Revels, Sudden death of the
Princess's (and Bacon's) father, Conclusion

129

10.
"MERRY TALES" AT
TWICKENHAM

A Promus entry which suggests that Bacon was
writing plays at his Twickenham Lodge, Bacon's partaking of
the Waters of Parnassus

147

11.
THE RETURN FROM PARNASUS PARTS 1
AND TWO

-Part One
-Part Two

151

12. JOHN FLORIO,
SHAKE-SPEARE AND BACON

Florio's life summarised, The anonymous Phaeton sonnet by
Shake-Speare, Florio's description of the Phaeton sonnet as
by "a friend of mine that loved better to be a poet than to
be counted so," But Shakspere had no need for anonymity, Two
other anonymous Shake-Speare sonnets in Florio
works, Conclusion

157

13.
THE NORTHUMBERLAND
MANUSCRIPT

Introduction, The MS once belonged in Bacon's possession,
The inventory, The MS in 1867, Scribbling on the cover, Date
of the MS, The MS included copies of Shake-Speare's
Richard II and Richard III, the Richard plays being
anonymous, The scribbling suggests that Shakespeare was
Bacon's pen-name, the inventory item Asmund and Cornelia the
probable projected title of Shake-Speare's A Lover's
Complaint, Conclusion, Stratforian counter-attack on
Richard II (based on comments by Bacon on the
play)

164

14.
THE HALL AND MARSTON"S

SATIRE'S AND A FREEMAN
EPIGRAM

Introduction, Hall's Virgidemiarum, Labeo and the
thirsty swain, "Labeo is whip't and laughs me in the face,"
Other references to Labeo, Marston's The Metamorphosis of
Pigmalion's Image, identifies Labeo with Shake-Speare,
Martston's Certain Satires, very probably identifies
Bacon ("mediocria firma") with Labeo and Shake-Speare,
Summary of Hall and Marston evidence, Hall and Marston
unlikely to be mistaken, The Statfordian answer, A Thomas
Freeman epigram, probably identifies Labeo with Shake-Speare
and Bacon, The Stratforian answer to Freeman

184

15.
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

The background, The epistle, The Inns of Court theory,
Baconian points, The epistle treats Shake-Speare as someone
independent of Shakspere's company, Bacon the play's likely
author

210

16. SHAKE-SPEARE'S LINKS
WITH THE INNS OF COURT

Schedule of plays and masques presented at or by the Inns
of Court from 1560-1616, Only one such play or masque known
to have been written by someone who was not an Inn member,
so unlikely that Shakspere wrote any play performed at Inn
of Court

Ben Jonson 's Sir John Daw a Councillor Extraordinary and
a concealed poet, Bacon the only Councillor
Extraordinary?

235

19.
A JOHN DAVIES SONNET TO
BACON

The sonnet tends to imply that Bacn wrote verse

239

20.
THE TEMPEST

The background, Strachey's letter (to which Shakspere
would not have access) The True Declaration, very
probably by Bacon

241

21.
KING JAMES PROSE WORKS-SHAKESPEARE'S COMMENDATORY LINES

The lines likely to have been written by Bacon

251

22. THE TOBIE MATHEW
POSTSCRIPT

Introduction, Description of Mathew's letter, "the mos
prodigious wit that ever I knew," The Baconian case on the
postsript, The Stratfordian answer (Thomas Bacon the
prodigious wit), Flaws in the Stratfordian answer, The
Shake-Speare "collection of 1619" , A possible via media,
Conclusion, Postscript on Sir John Falstaff

255

23.
THE FIRST FOLIO

Stratfordian arguments on it, Baconian arguments,

277

24. CRYPTOMANIA

The fallacies of Baconian cryptograms

280

25. THE SONNETS

The title page, The dedication to Mr. W.H., Mr. W. H. is
William Hall, William Hall published Bacon's Essays, Are the
sonnets fictional? The Fair Youth, The Dark Lady, The Rival
Poet, The sexuality of Bacon, Shakspere, and Shake-Speare,
Southampton, Shakspere and Bacon, French influence on the
Sonnets, The dating and order of the Sonnets,
Sonnet 94, Sonnet 107, , Sonnet 110,
Sonnet 111, Sonnet 112, Sonnets 135 & 136,
Sonnet 145, Conclusion

Introduction, Mutual borrowing? The number of parallels,SECTION 1
NON-PROMUS PARALLELISMS
Index to 100 best parallels,
The best parallels, Hamlet parallels,Troilus And Cressida parallels, The Tempest
parallels, The Bacon-Shake-Speare Theory of "spirits", The
70 next best non Promus parallelsSECTION 2
PROMUS PARALLELISMS
Introduction, Contents and sources, The nature and number of
the parallels, Mutual Borrowing?, Fewer Promus
parallels with other authors, Promus entries in
Bacon's prose works, Parallels which may explain
Shake-Speare's texts, Parallels between the Promus
(especially Folio 112) and Romeo and Juliet,
Parallels between Folio 112 and other Shake-Speare plays,
Friar Gilbert and Friar Lawrence, 12 more parallels,SECTION 3-
NON-SPECIFIC PARALLELSSECTION 4
PARALLELS BETWEEN SHAKE-SPEARE AND WRITERS OTHER
THAN BACONSECTION 5
THE STRATFORDIAN ANSWERSECTION 6
CONCLUSION ON PARALLELS

Probably more short poems by Shake-Speare, Some possible
examples, The Passionate Pilgrim, The "Charles Best"
poems,

572

36. RIVAL CLAIMANTS

Christopher Marlowe, The Earl of Oxford,

THE CASE FOR WILLIAM STANLEY, 6th
EARL OF DERBY
THE Fenner letters, Spenser's Aetion, The Nine
Worthies, Histriomastix, John Speed's History
of Great Britain, John Davies of Hereford's Paper's
Complaint, Conclusion on rival claimants

579

582

37.
THE STRATFORDIAN CASE

The Stratfordian case so far, The alleged late birth of the
Baconian theory, The alleged different spirit of the Bacon
and Shake-Speare works, The greatest fraud in history? Would
the secret have been known to Shakspere's colleagues? and to
the outside world? Bacon's secret not entirely kept but
not an open secret, How popular were Shake-Speare's plays? ,
the authorship of other patrician playwrights protected,

599

38.
CONTEMPORARY REFERENCES TO
SHAKE-SPEARE

By Robert Greene, By Henry Chettle, By John Davies of
Hereford, By John Webster, References after Shakspere's
death, The Stratford Monument, References in the First
Folio, The Folio epistles, All Ben Jonson's references to
Shakespere or Shake-Speare, All Jonson's references
to Bacon, Conclusion on Jonson, Shakespere and Bacon,
Other commendatory poems in the First Folio

Shake-Speare's stagecraft, The Phoenix and Turtle
, Anthony Bacon's letters, The Rutland Impressa,
Timon of Athens not an unfinished play

656

42. CONCLUSION ON
SHAKE-SPEARE'S IDENTITY

662

APPENDIX
1
SOME BACON POEMS

Bacon's Psalm paraphrases(and some other paraphrases of
Psalm 1, 4 other probable Bacon poems (The world's a
bubble, The world's a globe of state, The man of life
upright, Seated between th od world and the new) Bacon's
verse lines in his Meditatones Sacrae

666

APPENDIX 2THE MASQUE OF PROTEUS

The full annotated text, including two songs

693

APPENDIX 3

SHAKE-SPEARE'S KNOWLEDGE
OF ITALY

Specific references

705

APPENDIX 4

EPITAPHS ON BACON

-Manes Verulamiani (elegies Nos. 4, 9, 13, &
22)

713

APPENDIX 5

THE "CHARLES BEST" POEMS

Introduction , Epitaph on Henry IV of France, Epitaph on
Queen Elizabeth of England, Two panegyrics to King James I
of England, Panegyric to Prince Henry, Panegeric to Princess
Elizabeth, Two medieval Latin poems, with English
translations, on the Fall of Man in Adam and the Restoring
of Man by Christ, All these poems(except the two in Latin)
probably by Bacon